Technique of the Week #27 - Stuffed Dimensional Appliques

Project Hours: 4 hours
Design and Materials: 1 hour
Execution: 3 hours
I love the work of Kathy York.  She is a quilt artist who can think "outside the box" dimensionally.  She's got two rather "famous" works that have seen publication and exhibition that are dimensional.  The first is Little Fish in a Big City, and th esecond is called Synchronized Swimming.  You can see them here at her website.
I'm not Kathy York, and I'm not going to make a bajillion little fishes to put on my weekly quiltlet.  But I wanted to get a sense of HOW to apply this idea to a quilt surface, and I came up with this stuffed tentacle.  I drew a pattern, added about a third of an inch to each side because I knew stuffing it would draw it upwards, and then sewed the fabric tentacle.  I added yo-yos for suckers.  Pretty cool technique, sewing it down was easy using a variation of a blind hem stitch.  The edge of the background quilt is not wonky, but scanning this stuffed sucker was...
I'm amazed that the cephalopod theme continues strongly so far this year!  It's a fun theme.